#emmett loves them dearly. liam is getting better at the sibling thing. liam is trying to do better

[arachnidiots-a]

EMMETT JEFFRIES.

“I gave up trying to understand my mom’s deal a long time ago. Somewhere along the way, the anger just faded away and I had to focus on other shit. Talking to Emmett just makes me angry all over again. How do you have a kid this fucking amazing and not bat a fucking eye at the fact they’ve run away?” — Liam Kaz, SYNESILK: Return to Color issue #7

there’s a lot of messages, calls, emails, etc that liam won’t ever get. they’re lost to the period of liam’s venture through the multiverse. when they’re settled with a new phone, there’s a flood of the things that did manage to go through or were waiting to. they don’t bother to look. where to begin? the 99+ calls? the 10,000+ emails? they bury their head under a blanket and try to sleep. sitting amongst the countless texts is one from an unknown number. it’s been there for 2 weeks. liam won’t see it for another 3. it reads:

[sms] : hi!

this is emmett jeffries (your half brother, i'm carla's son). i got this number from her because i wanted to reach out and maybe get to know you more again :) i don't know how much you remember me and i hope this is the right number because she said you guys haven't talked in a while

hope to maybe hear from you!

emmett jeffries was born six years after liam, to their mother carla kaz and his father christopher jeffries. unlike liam’s parents, the two were never married, with carla barely being officially divorced. they stayed together on and off for nearly four years while raising emmett, juggling the occasional young liam whenever she was with them for occasional weeks. they officially broke things off around emmett’s fifth birth, and liam and her mom moved out of the shared apartment. 

he was raised mostly by his dad from there on, with the odd weekend or handful of days at his mom’s. liam was there some of the time, and they made the most of the rather quiet apartment. other times, he tried his best to hang out with his mom who would only rarely meet him halfway. 

for emmett his childhood is a weird assortment of memories. he remembers normal, good days with his dad. he remembers walks from school to home, talking about his day. he remembers following his mom around on errands and in the home. he remembers laughing and getting piggy backs from liam. there’s a memory here and there of martin too— mostly at holidays when he’d spend it with his mom’s family. what he doesn’t remember is what he was like, who he was. em can hardly recall what home life really consisted of or how school went for him. 

liam chooses not to tell him about the fights, or the arguments that he had with their mom. she chooses to skip over the fact he broke his arm on one failed family vacation when she hadn’t been watching him because she was sick of listening to christopher and their mother argue. instead, when and if he asks, they tell him there’s nothing to remember. it was a boring childhood, full of kind of sucky and closed off people, and out of the bunch of them, emmett was always the friendliest. it’s not entirely untrue. he’d wave to strangers, say hi seven times over, and try to talk to any adult who stood too close to the shopping cart he’d be sat in. with other kids, he’d stand a little awkwardly around till someone pulled him into a game— and they usually did. there’s a couple of childhood bullies he does seem to remember. liam was sunshine and rainbows too, but emmett was quieter, nice, polite. liam was always the scream nice things kind of kid. 

the two siblings weren’t necessarily the closest as kids. liam was fairly independent, constantly between parents just as he was, and angry on occasion at the idea that there was someone else in their mess of a family. sure, they were less alone, but she never wanted the responsibility. it shouldn’t have been their responsibility. when they were together, liam would play with him, and they’d enjoy a movie or game. some days they’d be inseparable and other days liam would be sure to add “half” when their mom told them to look out for their brother. despite the animosity, they never pointed any of it at emmett himself other than in small instances of not wanting to spend time with him or being upset that stuff was taken. 

while liam was having trouble accepting the role of a sibling, emmett always saw liam as his sibling. she’s in so many memories of his, and he couldn’t understand for the life of him why she ever became just a person in some stories and photos on the mantle. he’s quite a proud little brother, even if he doesn’t know them that well. up until they do reconnect, liam’s not aware of the impact of any of those messy 12 years together. 

liam leaves for college when emmett is 12. by then, they’ve spent such a jumble of days together and they’re no longer as close (or whatever closeness they had is mostly gone). it gets harder between all the back and forth with parents, and they’re both growing up. emmett’s gotten into sports, he plays a little bit of everything with baseball and soccer and track. it keeps him busy, and keeps him around other people.

he spends most of his time living at his dad’s. it’s not as quiet nor as independent, and the two get along quite well. chris works a job in real estate, which lets him be around much more often, and emmett would consider himself to be close with his dad. chris tells him everything, sometimes too much, and emmett’s not too worried about being blunt with his dad about when those moments come or when he doesn’t approve of some decision. he still spends time at his mom’s and it’s a weird breath of fresh air on occasion— even if it is lonely. the two still argue from time to time, they just can’t seem to understand each other, and em learns what he can about liam from a perfectly intact bedroom and the rare phone call she makes home. liam hasn’t returned to st. louis since the summer after their freshman year of college. 

“The universe is full of truths and mysteries. Aunt Carla fucking sucks, is just one of those universal truths.” — Martin Levy, SYNESILK: Return to Color issue #7

after having not heard about liam after a particularly long period of time, emmett’s curiosity comes to a large swell at 17. a rough argument with carla about whether or not she even knows if liam’s graduated college yet or alive leads him to swipe their phone number off of her phone with a simple mission to accomplish: know liam again. he fears she might not remember him, which is quite a ridiculous fear to have, but it still rings loud as ever in his head. he fears she might not want to know him again, and after days and then weeks of not hearing back he loses hope. 

until two 2 am texts:

[sms] : the emmett jeffries? the extraordinary emmett jeffries? best magician in all of st.louis missouri? 

[sms] : would you believe i lost my phone?